Joseph Zack: Letter to the Socialist Appeal [Oct. 20, 1939] 1

A Letter to the Appeal from Joseph Zack by Joseph Zack

Published in the Socialist Appeal [], v. 3, no. 80 (October 20, 1939), pg. 3.

Dear Sir: speeches against the Dies Committee at the same time as you affirm the facts, in which case, let In an edition of your publication (Trotsky- me assure you that the speeches you would make ite) of October 6, 1939, you are quit free in the would appear nowhere except in your own little epithets you use of condemning Ben Gitlow and paper, whereas, the facts you would affirm would myself for appearing before the Dies Committee.† be flashed across all the newspapers of the country, You raise the issue there of the possible suppres- in a manner that you would not like, but over sion of the Communist Party resulting from the which you, the same as myself, would have abso- activities of the Dies Committee, condemning lutely no control. When I was first interviewed by those who appear before the Dies Committee as the counsel of the Dies Committee two months siding with that suppression. ago, I said to him that if subpoenaed I could of May I ask you whether you yourself would course not refuse to appear and when appearing refuse to appear there if subpoenaed and run the I would not lie in favor of the Communist Party. risk of going to jail for contempt? May I also ask Would you do otherwise? you whether you, when appearing, would lie in It is not my fault if the mere statement of favor of the Communist Party, and if you did known facts about the party discredits them in lie, what good would that do to you, in face of the extreme. As to what the Dies Committee does the fact that the Dies Committee could prove or intends to do with my testimony, or how the out of your own printed articles the names of newspapers report any testimony, this of course all the various unions and other organizations is beyond my control. that the Communist Party controls. Would you In reference to the issue of the possible sup- undertake to deny that the Stalin GPU (Russian pression of the Communist Party, I am of course Secret Service), in fact, controls the activities of in favor of fighting to the limit any movement the Communist Party here, when, in fact, the Dies that, if it would come to power, would suppress Committee could quote your own printed words everyone else. I don’t have to tell you that the to that effect? Communist Party utilizes the available democ- You will probably say that you would make racy in this country for no other purpose than

†- An editorial in the Socialist Appeal of October 6, 1939, probably by editor Max Shachtman, called Ben Gitlow and Joseph Zack “turncoats without principles or scruples” for cooperating with the Dies Committee, a forerunner of the House Un-American Activities Committee. This assessment was softened in an October 20 editorial written in response to this letter, which stated that while the avowed “radicals” who testified before the Dies Committee were “with perhaps one or two exceptions, ex-radicals, avowed turncoats,” it was “undoubtedly wrong” to have bracketed Zack with the “patriotic renegade” Gitlow. 1 2 Joseph Zack: Letter to the Socialist Appeal [Oct. 20, 1939] to suppress it completely and entirely for their only the capitalists, but to expropriate also the own benefit, the same as the [German American] workers of all their rights. The workers cannot be Bund would do if they had a chance, the same as expropriated of property which they do not own, they have done in those countries where they have but when they are expropriated of their rights, acquired power. I would prefer, however, that they then a country becomes a huge concentration be “suppressed” by public ostracism rather than by camp, regimented by a bureaucracy, organized any administrative measures, for it is obvious that by a totalitarian party. Under such a setup, one or the public and the workers in particular will come more individuals can engineer a despotism over to the same conclusion as the resolution adopted all. This kind of slavery for which you too stand, by the American Labor Party, namely that they are explains better than anything your stand on this “anti-democratic, anti-humanitarian, anti-labor, question and the nonsense of your polemic. and the servants of Stalin’s dictatorship, brutal I, and others, however, who see in Socialism betrayers of the labor movement.” a system which gives more rights to the masses You know as well as I do that even the most over all things, economic and political, shall and reactionary Democrat in this country is far more will remain intransigent opponents of the kind democratic than Stalin’s mercenaries, who parade of slavery totalitarian parties and their splinter their alleged radicalism as a trap to the workers. The offsprings stand for. Therefore, far be it from me democracy in this country with all its faults and henceforth to sympathize with any of them, even essentially capitalist character does not depend on if they get paid back in their own coin. Mr. Dies or any other individuals. It is inherent in the system but the system of one party domination Very truly yours, of government ownership by the bureaucracy of all economic and political institutions has been Joseph Zack.† revealed as the instrumentality to expropriate not

†- Joseph Zack Kornfeder (a.k.a. “Joseph Zack,” “A.C. Griffth,” “J.P. Collins”) was born March 20, 1897 in Trencsen, Slovakia. Zack (he used his mother’s maiden name) was an ethnic Austrian from Catholic family and first came to US in 1916, where he worked as a garment worker. Zack was a member of the Communist movement from 1919, although not as a top-ranked leader in that year. In 1920 he was elected as a member of Central Executive Committee of the United Communist Party. He was a fraternal delegate to May 1921 Woodstock Convention due to his status on the CEC of the UCP. Early in 1922, he was elected as a member CEC of unifed CPA. He voluntarily resigned on April 17, 1922 to help make way for , Robert Minor, and Alfred Wagenknecht, who were coopted to the CEC at that time. He was a delegate to the ill-fated Bridgman Convention of August 1922. Zack served as Secretary of National Committee of the Needle Trades Section (TUEL), organized November 22, 1922. Zack was an adherent of the Foster faction in 1920s party fght. He married a Russian woman in 1926, with whom he had one son. Zack was in Moscow at disposal of the from 1928 to 1930. He attended Lenin Institute and was Foster faction’s man in Moscow and also sat on the Anglo-American Secretariat of ECCI. Zack left his family in Moscow to serve as a Comintern Rep to South America from1930 until Fall 1931. At that time he was jailed in Venezuela, returned to the United States and released at behest of US State Dept. Zack was the Eastern District Secretary of the in the fall 1931 and actually shared quarters with Earl Browder for 4 months. Deportation procedings dating back to the time of the Bridgman convention were fnally dropped in 1934. Zack quit CPUSA in fall of 1934, ostensibly over the party’s Right turn. He joined Workers Party of the United States and was a member for short time thereafter. Zack sought State Department help in getting wife and child out of USSR in1936, but was unsuccessful. He was threatened with deportation to Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1938. His wife was apparently arrested in the Ezhovshchina as the relative of an “enemy of the people” and shipped to the Gulag, an ordeal which she survived. Zack thereafter moved to a position of venemous anti-communism and was friendly witness before the Dies Committee on September 30, 1939. A hardline conservative after WWII, Zack returned to use of the name “Kornfeder” in later years, under which he authored several pamphlets. He died on May Day, 1963. Edited with footnotes by Tim Davenport. Published by 1000 Flowers Publishing, Corvallis, OR, 2011. • Non-commercial reproduction permitted. http://www.marxisthistory.org